Voters across the U.S. on Tuesday voted to pass state laws prohibiting non-citizens from voting in elections, multiple outlets reported.
Non-citizen voting has become a concern among some critics amid a number of states that allow such individuals to participate in state and local elections in certain jurisdictions, including California, Vermont and Maryland, as well as Washington, D.C. Eight states voted Tuesday on constitutional measures that would bar non-citizens from participating in their respective state and local elections, though final vote tallies are still being conducted.
Seven of the eight — Kentucky, South Carolina, Oklahoma, Missouri, Iowa, and swing states North Carolina and Wisconsin — voted to pass those various measures, in all cases by substantial margins, according to The Associated Press and New York Times. Idaho has not yet begun counting the votes on the state’s proposed measure.
“What these amendments do is prevent cities from legalizing non-citizen voting, they don’t prevent citizens from voting in elections, whether a state requires an ID to vote or not, and they don’t dissuade people from voting unless that person is a non-citizen,” Jack Tomczak, Vice President of Americans for Citizen Voting, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
As of this year, Colorado, Arizona, Florida, Louisiana, North Dakota, Ohio and Alabama have already amended their state constitutions to prevent non-citizens from voting.
Laws surrounding non-citizen voting have become a contentious issue between the left and the right. A number of Republican states such as Alabama, Texas and Ohio had identified tens of thousands of non-citizens on their voting rolls in the weeks and months ahead of the elections and moved to delist them.
The Biden-Harris administration’s Department of Justice (DOJ) sued these states for attempting to remove non-citizens from voting rolls this close to the elections. Some of these states are now suing the Biden-Harris administration in retaliation.
The question of voter identification laws is also contentious. The Biden-Harris administration and a host of congressional Democrats have previously opposed legislation that would require stronger proof of citizenship in order to vote, claiming that it would inadvertently purge eligible voters from voting rolls or make voter registration more difficult.
Several states such as California, Oregon, New York, Pennsylvania and Nevada require no form of identification to vote in person, with exceptions made if it is the first time an individual is voting in one of those states.
(Featured Image Media Credit: Screen Capture/PBS NewsHour)
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